HILLARY CLINTON, IN CHINA, DETAILS ABUSE OF WOMEN

By PATRICK E. TYLER

Published: September 6, 1995

BEIJING, Sept. 5—
Speaking more forcefully on human rights than any American dignitary has on Chinese soil, Hillary Rodham Clinton catalogued a devastating litany of abuse that has afflicted women around the world today and criticized China for seeking to limit free and open discussion of women's issues here.

"It is time for us to say here in Beijing, and the world to hear, that it is no longer acceptable to discuss women's rights as separate from human rights," Mrs. Clinton told the Fourth World Conference on Women assembled here.

"It is a violation of human rights when babies are denied food, or drowned, or suffocated, or their spines broken, simply because they are born girls," Mrs. Clinton said, or "when women and girls are sold into slavery or prostitution for human greed.

"It is a violation of human rights when women are doused with gasoline, set on fire and burned to death because their marriage dowries are deemed too small" she continued, or "when thousands of women are raped in their own communities and when thousands of women are subjected to rape as a tactic or prize of war."

While her comments concerned abuses that have taken place around the world -- the burning of brides occurs in India for example, and rape has most recently been a tactic of war in Bosnia -- her words took on a special resonance here in China, where the Administration has muted its public criticism of human rights abuses and is struggling to patch up frayed political relations.

China has been widely criticized for forcing women to be sterilized or have abortions as part of its policy of one child per family, and there are wide reports of female infanticide by parents who want a son.

China's reaction was uncertain tonight. Beijing's relations with Washington have been strained by a summer of tumult over the visit to the United States in June by the president of Taiwan, Lee Teng-hui.

Mrs. Clinton's gravity and directness seemed to please both Democratic and Republican members of the United States delegation here, and thus the speech may trump the political disputes that have plagued both Mrs. Clinton's decision to travel here and the Administration's approach to China.

She delivered her remarks after joining hundreds of delegates in a morning workshop on "women and health security."

Addressing the full conference in the afternoon, Mrs. Clinton expanded on a theme that Pakistan's Prime Minister, Benazir Bhutto, raised on Monday when she told the delegates that violence against women thrives when there is a "crisis of silence and acquiescence."

As Mrs. Clinton recited her litany from the podium, many delegates applauded, some cheered and others pounded the tables.

Continuing with references to domestic violence, genital mutilation, coercive abortions and sterilizations, Mrs. Clinton told the delegates from more than 180 countries, "If there is one message that echoes forth from this conference, let it be that human rights are women's rights and women's rights are human rights, once and for all."

A senior Administration official traveling with Mrs. Clinton was at pains after the address to explain that it did not mark a return to a more vocal confrontation with China over its poor human rights record. In recent months, Washington has sought to tone down its public remarks on human rights abuses in favor of a more private dialogue that had few results.

"There is nothing in her speech that in any way deviates from our approach on China," the official said, "or on our desire to get the relationship stabilized and to get some momentum going. This is a United Nations conference and she was speaking out on a global problem."

One of the Democratic Congresswomen here, Carolyn B. Maloney of New York, said she believed that Mrs. Clinton spoke from personal conviction after she became acquainted firsthand with some problems of women in the third world on a tour of Pakistan and India earlier this year.

"I think she spoke from the heart and she spoke with great power," Ms. Maloney said.

Representative Christopher H. Smith, Republican of New Jersey, who had called on Mrs. Clinton to speak out against "barbaric and egregious" human rights abuses in China during this trip, said he was satisfied to a great extent with her speech, but believed she could have been even more specific in criticizing China's abuses. He called her speech "eloquent" and praised her for "raising the issue" in China.

Still, the impact of the speech seemed to reverberate through the hall.

"She talked so eloquently about human rights, and I thought it was very effective, because all of the women here will know that the wife of the President of the United States also thinks about these things," said Maria Kamm, a delegate from Tanzania and member of Parliament there.

In the section of her speech aimed most directly at China, Mrs. Clinton seemed to betray frustration over China's intolerance for dissenting views.

A number of delegates, including exiles from Tibet and leaders from Taiwan, were denied visas to attend this meeting and a parallel gathering of private women's organizations.

"Freedom means the right of people to assemble, organize, and debate openly," Mrs. Clinton admonished her Chinese hosts. "It means respecting the views of those who may disagree with the views of their governments. It means not taking citizens away from their loved ones and jailing them, mistreating them, or denying them their freedom or dignity because of peaceful expression of their ideas and opinions."

Ordinary Chinese citizens did not see or hear Mrs. Clinton's speech, which was blacked out on official radio and television. There are 5,000 Chinese delegates, all selected by the Communist Party and all with strong ties to the party or the Government. Others were restricted from even coming near the conference site. Their news was limited to a carefully scripted menu, featuring a blizzard of ethusiastic propaganda on the enormous progrss of Chinese women under the party's guidance.

The senior party official in attendance today, Chen Muhua, refused later to take any questions on the speech. "I'm sorry, I'm very busy," she said. The official Chinese press was under instructions to ignore Mrs. Clinton's remarks until an official reaction had been considered.

Afterward, Mrs. Clinton said she hoped the Chinese had gotten the message of her speech. "I think it is important that all governments which in any way infringe on human rights know that this conference takes a strong stand and that this conference is trying to move toward the realization of human rights," she told a news conference.

She said President Clinton's goal is to remain "engaged" with China in a broad and comprehensive relationship, but added, "we are trying to have an honest relationship."

"To me, it was important to express how I felt and to do so as clearly as I could," she said.

Thousands of Chinese women who were interested in attending these sessions simply had no opportunity to apply or gain access to the gathering.

Photos: Hillary Rodham Clinton speaking at a panel on women's health and security in Beijing yesterday before addressing the full assembly, where her pointed address evoked cheers, applause and pounding on tables. (Associated Press)(pg. A10)